A-Theory, B-Theory: Psychological and Physical Time.
This work aims to present the current tensions between a-theory and b-theory views of time, and the consequent issues of trying to reconcile an eternal God to any view of time which holds to a the existence of the present. After addressing McTaggart’s motivations for introducing the concepts of A-Theory and B-Theory, I show how Augustine identifies nearly identical issues in man’s understanding of time, but refuses to reject time altogether as McTaggart does. Rather, Augustine Develops a dual model to time, accounting for both physical and psychological time. This theory of time allows for God’s eternality, and man’s conception of a privileged now. Notably, Augustine’s perspective the insensibility of asking whether God can know indexical facts at the index, as we do. I argue for how the Augustinian perspective answers many of the shortcomings of Stump and Kretzmann’s ET-Temporality, concerning temporal action, persistence, free-will, and indexed knowledge
There is long-standing tension between the traditional Christian belief that God exists outside of time and the reality that God interacts with humanity in time. The apparent contradiction suggests that one must either deny that God exists outside of time, or that God acts within time. Many have taken the former approach and claim that God is not eternal, but everlasting. That is, he exists in time, forever. This has become the standard view in recent years. This paper aims to introduce the tensions between two views of time and address these tensions by suggesting both a physical eternal time and a present, psychological time as suggested by Augustine. Lastly, I consider this Augustinian time as a complement to the theory of ET-temporality presented by Stump and Kretzmann.
Two crucial issues arise when one considers God’s relation to the temporal world. The first is that of temporal knowledge: An omniscient God must know all things, including temporal, or tensed facts. God must know what events are in the present, past, or future; he must know what is occurring now and what is not, and he must know what humans currently know and so not know. For God to have this knowledge, however, he must be present to the temporal passage of time, and therefore not eternal. The second issue is that of divine action. It is apparent that God affects temporal events in time. If God affects things in time, he must be present to that time, and therefore, not eternal. This paper focuses on the omniscience problem above and suggests that God exists eternally, and yet knows tensed facts because he knows human psychological perspectives of time.
Before asking if God knows events in time, one must first establish what it is to know something in time. Few would deny that God knows every event or action that occurs. God knows that JFK died on November 22nd, 1963, that America was founded in 1776, and that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in BC 49. He also knows that I sat to write this at 9:35am on October 21st, but does he know that I am sitting now? Can God know facts as past, present, or future, or does he simply know at what time they occur?
The distinction between these two claims lies in the difference between the A-Theory and B-Theory of time. First coined by J. M. E. McTaggart, these theories distinguish between the fundamental nature of time either as a relation to the present or as a series of events. The A-Theory categorizes time as “past,” “present,” and “future,” while the B-Theory categorizes in the terms “before,” “simultaneous,” and “after.” The key distinction is that of the present. The A-Theory considers everything in relation to the present: a special time from which everything else compares. The past was present, and the future is not yet present. The relational nature of the present is crucial, because one can only know the present, by being in the present. Thus, if God is to know the present as we do, he must be in the present, and not eternal. Most philosophers who hold to divine eternality, thus reject the A-Theory of time for the B-Theory.
Contrary to the present-relative A-Theory, the B-Theory considers time as a series of instances, each present to itself, and related to each other in the terms before, simultaneous, or after. There remains a relationship between moments, but without any special time of the present. Every moment is present to itself; neither future, nor past, just existent at its time. God then knows each and every moment all at once. More importantly, he does not have to be temporal, as there is no special present time in which to be present. God could know every fact in its time without needing to know its present-relation to each other moment. He sees every fact at once, and knows if other facts are before, after, or simultaneous to it. Consider the following set of facts: on October 21st 2019, Blanchard is in La Mirada; on July 21st, 2019, Blanchard is in Raleigh; on December 21st, 2019, Blanchard is in Myrtle Beach. All of these facts are equally real and present to God, and God remains eternal.
The B-Theory makes sense of God’s eternal knowledge of facts at times, but rejects God’s knowledge of tensed facts. As stated above, if one can only know the present by being in the present, then for God is to know the present as we do, he must be temporal, and not eternal. One must either reject God’s eternality, or reject the A-Theory of time.
This dilemma is not new. Augustine begins his treatise on time by asking how God is in eternity and still sees in time, an event at the time it occurs.[1] Throughout his Confessions, Augustine makes paradoxical references to time existing as “past, present, future” and as “before, present to, and after.”[2] As much as he is wrestling with God’s nature, he is wrestling with A-Theory and B-Theory. Rather than viewing these two as mutually exclusive, Augustine recognizes that both perspectives of time must be true in some way. Man has strong intuitions toward present indexical facts, and yet God must eternally know all things that have and will occur in the same way he knows the present. Augustine resolves to adopt a B-theory view of time, while explaining man’s perspectives as a psychological experience.[3]
McTaggart first introduces concepts of A-theory and B-theory in attempt to disprove time, but admits time appears to us in two ways. First, “each position is earlier than some propositions, and Later than some other positions.”[4] The second is that “each position is either Past, Present, or Future.”[5] McTaggart offers these terms not as in conflict, but as two simultaneous ways time appears to exist, which he can then debunk. His approach mirrors Augustine’s. Both acknowledge the apparent inconsistency between how time appears to go from future, through the present, and into the past; and how time cannot remain it a state of past, present, and future. What is future will be past. No time can ever be objectively past, since it was once future, and that which is future is only so because it will be past. Furthermore, that which turns from future to past never seems to be present, since once it appears it is already past. Both Augustine and McTaggart conclude that the “A-theory,” while immediately intuitive, is non-substantial. Both conclude that only the present exists. One present before another, and the next after it. Both settle on a B-theory of time, where they differ, however, is in how they salvage man’s intuitive bent toward A-theory.
McTaggart admits that for time to exist, one must hold some version of A-theory, and so he denies that time exists.[6] Augustine, however, takes a different approach, considering a distinction between physical and psychological time. Physical time is that which is. All times exist as the present, all present to God. He considers the present is as nearly non-existent instance. Like the flipping of a page, it is the passing of the future into the past, and yet, the future and past do not exist. The present is all there is, occurring as minuscule instances.[7] Man, however, is unable to grasp the present, for if one considers the present, it is already past. Any attempt to comprehend the now is absurd. As soon as one considers the present, it is already past. Man cannot comprehend what is occurring, but only what has recently passed. There is then, no privileged now, because not even man is not aware of the present now. Man is now, but is only aware of the past, and intuiting the future.[8]
Man interacts with the past and the future through memory. One never considers the past in the past, but in the present, we remember it. Even those events which seem past, exist in the memory as present. We remember ourselves, as we were in the past.[9] Physical time exists in a “before-after” relationship. It is the memory that takes this series of “before” moments and considers them past. Likewise, the memory speculates how the future might look like the past. The mind does not know the future, nor has it ever known the future, but it assumes the future will be like the past. Still, the past is not, nor is the future existing already. There is only the present, and the memory speculating about past moments and future possibilities.[10]
Memory, for Augustine is the means by which one considers the past. Augustine commits to a very narrow instance of the present, claiming “it flies headlong a way out of the future into the past… the present itself has no length.”[11] He relies, therefore, on the memory to help make sense of his current state. When one speaks the second word of a sentence, the first word is already gone, he is only remembering it, and yet the sentence is meaningless without the memory to bind these words together.[12] The memory, then salvages the A-theory for Augustine, not as a physical reality, but as psychological concept. It is memory that allows man to consider the past, the future, and the present. Without memory, each present moment would be disoriented chaos. Man understands the present and future only by inferring that it will conduct like the past.[13]
God, however, does not change, and thus does not have memory. Rather, God is present to all moments as eternal instances.[14] Augustine argues for absolute transcendence. God is simply present, without extension, wholly at once.[15] God does not remember the past or foresee the future, but sees all time at once present; man only uses language of foreknowledge because of his limited perspective.[16] If the present is like the flipping of a page, God is the cover, holding the pages at the spine, none is closer to or further from him.
Thus far, we have seen that Augustine considers time to be fundamentally a series of present instances consistent with the B-theory, which all occur at once; and that man considers time as past and future through of his memory, unable to know the present at the present. Furthermore, Augustine considers that God is present to all times as present. This flips the time problem upside down: Typically philosophers have asked if God can know the present, at the present like humans do. This is wrong. Humans cannot know the present at the present, but only through memory. Only God can know the present at the present, but he cannot know the past as humans do, because he does not remember. The language of has been backwards, but the problems persist: Can God know things like we do?
Wierenga claimed the disconnect came in the distinction between “believing that a proposition is true at an index, and believing at an index that a proposition is true.”[17] The latter requiring the agent to be present to the index. Given the above, however, man cannot believe a proposition at an index. Only God has this ability to make a judgement at the index. It seems the question we ought to consider is if God can know memories.
It is self-evident that if God is unchanging he does not have memory as we do. He cannot gain information or long to be present to times past. Furthermore, God cannot anticipate the future, for he is present to that as well. However, God must have a way of understanding things in time. Music, for instance, requires memory of what has been in the past in relation to the present. Unlike sentences, which express facts God already knows, music cannot be known all at once. Knowledge of every note at its time is not knowledge of the music itself, but one must know the music in time. Weirenga claims that for God to know indexicals, he must have limitations to his knowledge, and concludes that God cannot know indexicals. Weirenga argues that it makes no sense for God to have these limitations; humans know tensed facts, and God does not.[18] While Wierenga is correct to note that God cannot have these limitations, he is presumptuous to assume this excludes God’s knowledge of indexicals.
If Augustine is right that we do not know indexicals by being present, but by remembering, God could share in our knowledge. While God does not have a memory, he does have knowledge of each human’s memory. God knows human thoughts at every present. Thus, for God to know what music sounds like in time, is to know how we are remembering music. God, being present to all times experiences the entire song at once, but by knowing our memory, knows what the notes sound like, one after another. God remains present to all physical time, yet has knowledge of man’s psychological time. The remainder of this work focuses on application of this distinction in contemporary debates on time, and how it might aid relative views of time as suggested by Stump and Kretzmann.
In their article “Eternity,” Stump and Kretzmann argue for the eternality of God, while maintaining God’s ability to exist simultaneously with temporal objects. Borrowing from Boethius, they define God’s eternality similarly to Augustine, as “the complete possession all at once of illimitable life.”[19] Boethius, following Augustine, insists that God’s eternal existence is without limitation or change, but is one everlasting instant. Boethius is clear to say this instant has boundless duration, God exists all at once and is always.[20] In this, he is clearly influenced by Augustine’s claims that God is all at once creating all times. This contradictory atemporal eternal instant is not incompatible with temporal notions of time as finite and progressive, but rather, meant to suggest two separate modes of real existence: eternal and temporal.[21]
As we have already seen, this is compatable with Augustine’s notion that God exists all at once in every instance, and that temporal time moves linearly in distinct finite instances. These two separate modes of existence both incline toward B-theory. Everything temporal is present to itself, and God is eternally present. Still, God remains present to temporal instance without sacrificing his eternality. Stump and Kretzmann get at this through the concept of ET-simultaneity.
Holding that eternity and time are both real and distinct modes of existence, Stump and Kretzmann suggest a means of simultaneity that appears relative to the observer. They compare this relativity to Eistein’s theory of Relativity. The comparison ultimately fails for many reasons, perhaps the most important of which being that Einsteins relativity demands no privileged observer. This is not true of God’s interaction with time. God is privileged in his knowledge of simultaneity, even those that occur in time. He does know what actually is simultaneous.
Despite its drawbacks, the perspective-oriented nature of ET-simultaneity answers many typical issues of God’s eternality. ET simultaneity suggests that God can be simultaneous to two temporal instances which are not simultaneous to each other. From the temporal perspective, the events may be not simultaneous, but God is present to each. In this way, God is the privileged observer, because he knows both the temporal non-simultaneity of the events, and the ET simultaneity he shares with them. It is only the temporal perspective that suggests something like A-theory. Stump and Kretzmann affirm this claiming “contrary to our familiar but superficial impression, temporal duration is only apparent duration.”[22] This is analogous to Augustine’s commitment to both physical and psychological time. God, in his privileged eternal perspective sees things as they really are in physical time, but man, in a temporal perspective sees things in a psychological a-theory of time, despite only existing in duration-less present instances.
Augustine’s thoughts may be of further use to answer some of the objections to the ET-simultaneity perspective. Four such objections are as follows: 1) God cannot timelessly act in time in any coherent manor, 2) a temporal entity cannot persist through a B-theory of time with any continuity, 3) an eternally present God leaves no room for human free will, and 4) an eternal God cannot know what time it is now..[23] It is to these objections I devote the rest of this essay.
Obvious objections arise when one considers how an eternal God could act in temporal time. Nelson Pike famously objects to God’s timelessness with his spontaneous mountain example. He claims it is “absurd” for a timeless God to produce a temporal object.[24] Pike claims that the action and its effects must both be temporally located in time[25] Stump and Kretzmann simply deny this condition Instead, borrowing from Aquinas, they claim only the effect of the action need occur in temporal time, and that God acting eternally may yield temporal results. While this reply does satisfy that an eternal God can cause effects in time, it has routinely been criticized for its simplicity and limitation of God. Not only does it deny God’s ability to act in time, it also tends toward deism, as God would not act in human time.
It is helpful here to consider the nature of eternity not as one instant standing still, but as Augustine describes it as wholly, all at once, and eternal.[26] For God is present to each temporal time but he is also presently creating each time in eternity. Unlike Stump and Kretzmann, Augustine understands God to act in every time. This is not to say he is temporal, bound in time, or changing, but that he is present to and acting in every time. He is eternally ET-simultaneous to every moment, and eternally creating every moment.
Another frequent objection to Stump and Kretzmann’s theory is that of temporal persistence and continuity. The objection in that there is an apparent incoherence with there being an instant and eternal God with no temporal duration. Stump and Kretzmann answer that there is no temporal duration; only apparent duration. Like Augustine, they claim that there is no past or future, only one duration less instant. All these instances are ET-Temporal to God, and it is knowing eternity (God) that helps man understand their atemporal duration. Augustine would add further to this by considering memory to be the function by which one knows eternity. It is memory that allows one to exist (though only in memory) in another time but remain the present.
Memories allow us to exist in the past, and to infer our existence in the future. I still exist in 2010, in my memories and in my inference I predict my existence in 2020. Neither of these two exist in time, but both of them exist in my psychology, and both of them are ET-simultaneous to God. Memory is the means by which we persist, and the means by which we understand a glimpse of Gods existence in eternity. As mentioned earlier, without the memory, each second would be shockingly disorienting, but memory allows man to persist, to transcend time, despite only ever existing in durationless instants.
Perhaps the largest issue with Stump and Kretzmann’s view is that of divine for knowledge and free will. If God is ET-Simultaneous with every moment, then he already knows what will happen. This seems to leave man with very little free will. What God knows will happen, and cannot change. Man then has all his actions predetermined in the mind of God. Stump and Kretzmann only briefly address this issue when discussing God’s knowledge of the present time. They follow Augustine claiming that God cannot foreknow anything, but simply knows everything. The objections concerning determinism rest on the psychological time of past, present, and future. These are only known by means of our human limitations, so to say God knows them is absurd. God simply knows what happens. Any illusion of foreknowledge is only in the mind of man.
While Stump and Kretzmann have already drawn heavily on Augustine to address this paradox, his work on predestination here is helpful. Much like the past and present, Augustine argues that free actions are a psychological, more than a physical reality. God creates the entirety of creation all at once. Thus, the concept of pre-determinism is as absurd as the concept of foreknowledge above. The issue is just determinism. Augustine is clear that God creates and determines the instances of the present in one eternal instant, and with them he creates our actions, knowledge, and loves.[27] Augustine, however, sees this as grace. If man is as fallen as Augustine believes, than any free choices would be sinful choices. It is the grace of God, then to create all things, even determinately. Like the past and the future, however, humanity intuitively bears the psychological reality of free will. Even if one believes in God’s determinism, he is still responsible for his actions. While God knows and creates all things at once, man still has choices, even if only psychologically.
The last issue that arises for those considering ET-Temporality is that God cannot know what time it is now. If God is equally and eternally present to every time, he cannot pick out any specific time as now. Stump and Kretzmann clarify that this question is absurd for the B-theorist.[28] If God is eternal, there is no privileged now. Again, Augustine’s memory aids the discussion. If the now, as described in A-theory, is a psychological reality, then there is something we are wanting God to know. It is the same now that humans know.
The issue, however, is that humans do not know the now. As stated above, man can only know what is in his memory, for any cognition of the now, is actually remembering the immediate past. Man’s concept of a now, is illusory. Man is aware of the past, and makes inferences about the future. The now is just the space between these two phenomena. Therefore, God can know what time it is now, because he is aware of our memories and beliefs. He knows what was most recently remembered to be now in our psychological perspective. God knows all the times that are, and he knows at each of those times, what time it is in man’s memory.
While Augustine’s perspective on time is anything but new, understanding his dual modes of time in light of A-Theory and B-Theory helps one make sense of the apparent inconsistency between God’s eternality and his presence in temporal time. Viewing temporal time as psychological time reduces the A-theory to a mere phenomenon to which God has access. Furthermore, reducing man’s knowledge of time to the psychological past makes indexical facts as memory. God has knowledge of the present that man does not, and has knowledge of man’s memory of indexicals. Augustine’s perspective on time resolves many areas that Stump and Kretzmann left wanting. While ET-Temporality descends philosophically from Augustine, through Boethius, their failure to consider psychological time resulted in a relative theory of time, with nothing to explain the relativity. Considering Augustine from the perspective of the contemporary discussion on time reveals how desperately we lack phenomenological explanations of experiencing time. For all its apparent contradictions, the most coherent account of time remains that put forward by Saint Augustine at the end of the 4th century.[29]
[1] Augustine. Confessions. 11. 1. [2] Ibid [3] Fitzgerald, Allan D. Augustine Through the Ages. 833 [4] McTaggart, JME. “The Unreality of Time.” 2 [5] Ibid 4 [6] Ibid 5 [7] Augustine. The Confessions 11.12 [8] Ibid 12.14 [9] Ibid 11.13 [10] Ibid 11.20 [11] Ibid 11.21 [12] Ibid 11.20 [13] Augustine. City of God 12.16 [14] Augustine. Confessions 11.7 [15] Fitzgerald, Allan D. Augustine Through the Ages. 318 [16] Augustine. City of God 11.21 [17] Wierenga, Timelessness Out of Mind” [18] Wierenga, Edward R. “Timelessness Out of Mind” 155 [19] Stump and Kretzmann “Eternity” 431 [20] Ibid 432 [21] Ibid 432 [22] Stump and Kretzmann “Eternity” 444 [23] There are further objections to Stump and Kretzmann’s theory, to which Augustine could be of service, and many objections Stump and Kretzmann answer sufficiently on their own, but for the sake of this paper, I focus on these three. [24] Pike, Nelson God and Timelessness. (London: Routlege and Kegan Paul, 1970) 104. [25] Stump and Kretzmann “Eternity” 449 [26]Augustine, Confessions 11.7.9 [27] Augustine, City of God 15.1 [28] Stump and Kretzmann “Eternity” 456 [29] Toward the end of writing this paper, I came to discover that a similar thesis had been put forward by Katherin A. Rogers in her essay “Eternity Has No Duration.” Thus, rather than critique areas where Stump and Kretzmann differ from the Medieval perspective, I chose to suggest Augustinian solutions to issues that have been raised against ET-Temporality.
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